Captain Blackheart has shoved off in his ghost ship, Blackheart’s Revenge, to blow the docks to smithereens! Attack Blackheart’s ship to stop his assault and send him to a watery grave, or clear the path of enemies to defend him as he carries out his mission.

Blackheart’s Revenge is a new Arena Battleground that introduces attack/defend-style mechanics and asymmetric gameplay to Heroes of the Storm. Only the attacking team has a Core, and they must stop Blackheart before sails across the battleground to destroy it.

Shuffle Pick: Pick one of three randomly selected Heroes, and then duke it out against the enemy team to attack or defend Blackheart.

Attack: The attacking team must gather cannonballs, load them into cannons that line the docks, and fire on Blackheart’s Revenge to sink the ship before it reaches their Core.

Defend: Kill attacking Heroes to prevent them from firing the cannons and see to it that Blackheart’s ship reaches the Core in-tact.

Click the Brawl Info button in the lower-left corner of the screen to learn detailed information about the currently active Brawl.

Revamped Tutorial

The Heroes of the Storm Tutorial has been reworked and split into two categories: Tutorial and Battleground Training.

The Tutorial covers the basics of how to play Heroes of the Storm, including combat, team leveling, Talents, and Mercenary Camps.

Battleground Training acquaints players with the importance of Battleground Objectives.

Players can now play through the Tutorial and Battleground Training using three different Heroes: Jaina, Muradin, and Tyrande.

Revisit the Tutorials or Challenges at any time by opening the Main Menu (ESC) and clicking the Tutorials or Challenges buttons.

New Hero: Varian

Few would have expected that the gladiator known only as Lo’Gosh was in truth the missing ruler of Stormwind, Varian Wrynn. Now the High King of the Alliance, his every action shapes the destiny of Azeroth itself.

Abilities that reveal Stealthed/Cloaked Heroes will no longer remove the Stealth/Cloak effect, but will instead temporarily reveal the cloaked Hero.

The following talents now function while under the effects of Stealth granted by another player (ex: Tyrande’s Shadowstalk):

Nova

Tactical Espionage

Advanced Cloaking

Covert Ops

Samuro

Way of the Wind

Harsh Winds

Developer Comments: Some revealers, like Oracle from Tassadar and now Scouting Drone, are very binary in their ability to reveal Heroes, by design. But their purpose is to provide scouting and position of the enemy, and not to negate the effects of Talents or Abilities that rely on Stealth to provide their benefit. While examining these conditional Talents, we decided that it would be more interesting to allow synergies between external sources of Stealth these Talents. We like that choices like Tyrande’s Shadowstalk or Medivh’s Invisibility become more interesting if you have allies that gain additional benefits from Stealth on your team.

Illidan

Now also increases the duration of Sweeping Strike from 3 to 5 seconds

Increased the bonus damage gained from hitting 2+ Heroes with Sweeping Strike from 125 to 150%

Level 4

Unbound (W)

No longer reduces the cooldown of Sweeping Strike

Added Functionality:

Quest: After hitting 30 Heroes with Sweeping Strike, gain a second charge of Sweeping Strike

Level 7

Thirsting Blade (Trait)

Increases healing amount of 50 to 60%

Level 16

Marked for Death (Q)

Damage reduced from 225 to 180

Developer Comments: We’re aiming to make a few of the earlier talent choices for Illidan more competitive options, and open up a greater variety of playstyles for Illidan players. By increasing the bonus of Unending Hatred, we think farming Minion waves and Hunting into fights will be enticing on certain Battlegrounds. By allowing Unbound to grant 2 charges of Sweeping Strike, we think that Talents like Battered Assault and Blades of Azzinoth will showcase an Illidan that can dance across an enemy team and do a lot of damage while doing so.

Raynor

Thrall

Abilities

Earthquake (R)

Added functionality:

Now deals 50 damage to Heroes with each pulse(will now trigger Frostwolf Resilience)

Sundering (R)

Stun duration reduced from 1.25 to 1 seconds

Developer Comments: We have mentioned before that sometimes we will stubbornly hold on making balance changes to some Heroic abilities because we believe they are actually very powerful in their current form, even if they are not currently seeing much play. This has been the case with Earthquake, but Sunder has consistently been the go-to pick since Thrall’s inception. We hope this change will help shake up the pick rates of Thrall’s Heroic abilities.

After using an ability, your next auto-attack within 6 seconds deals 40% more damage.

New Talent: Grim Task (Passive)

Hero Takedowns increase Ability Power by 4%, up to a total of 40%. This bonus Ability Power is lost on death.

Rending Cleave (Q)

Moved from level 16

Damage is now dealt over 3 seconds from 5

Damage reduced from 50 to 40%

Level 7

New Talent: Slip into Shadow (E)

Your Blink has 2 charges and its cooldown is increased by 8 seconds.

New Talent: Seeker in the Dark (W)

Your Singularity Spike takes 50% longer to explode, and can be reactivated while it is attached to an enemy to teleport to them. After reactivation, your Movement Speed is increased by 30% for 3 seconds.

Wormhole (E)

Moved from level 13

First Aid (Active)

Removed

Follow Through (Passive)

Removed

Shadow Spike (W)

Removed

Searing Attacks (Active)

Removed

Level 13

New Talent: Shroud of Adun (Passive)

You gain a shield equal to 15% of your Maximum Health over 5 seconds while under Permanent Cloak.

Vigorous Strike (Passive)

Renamed to Mending Strikes

Moved from level 4

Healing amount increased from 25 to 40%

Giantkiller (Passive)

Removed

Burning Rage (Passive)

Removed

Assassin’s Blade (Trait)

Removed

Level 16

New Talent: Sentenced to Death (W)

You deal 50% increased damage to enemies while they have a Singularity Spike attached to them.

Master Warp Blade (Trait)

Moved from level 4

Damage increased from 100 to 125%

Void Slash (Q)

New Functionality:

Cleave deals 40% more damage and its cooldown is reduced by 3 seconds when it hits more than 1 enemy Hero.

Moved from level 7

Double Bombs (W)

Removed

Stoneskin (Active)

Removed

Level 20

Protective Prison (R)

Renamed to Gift of the Xel'Naga

New functionality:

Enemies are slowed by 50% for 3 seconds once Void Prison Ends.

Developer Comments: There were two main goals behind this rework: Upgrade Zeratul’s talent tree and introduce some interesting new choices, and better sell the fantasy of being a Dark Templar. As always is the goal with our Hero reworks, we didn’t want to change the way he is played, but rather amplify and improve upon it. Overall, he has felt the same to play against in our internal testing, but with a couple new tricks up his sleeve. We hope that our current Zeratul fans will find some new toys to play around with, and that new users will feel more like the mobile shadow-assassin you’d expect from a Dark Templar Hero.

Support

Kharazim

Every third Basic Attack now also increases your Movement Speed by 30% for 2 seconds.

Level 4

New Talent: Spirit Ally (Active)

Place a Spirit Ally that heals allies in a large area around it for 2% of their maximum Health every second for 10 seconds. Has 150 Health. You can Radiant Dash to Spirit Allies. 45 second cooldown.

New Talent: Earth Ally (Active)

Place an Earth Ally that reduces Heroic Basic Attack damage nearby allied Heroes receive by 50%. Has 400 Health and lasts 10 seconds. You can Radiant Dash to Earth Allies. 30 second cooldown.

New Talent: Air Ally (Active)

Place an Air Ally that grants vision of a large area around it for 40 seconds. Has 70 Health. You can Radiant Dash to Air Allies. 20 second cooldown. 2 charges.

Healing Ward (Active)

Removed

Foresight (Q)

Removed

Overtake (E)

Removed

Protective Shield (Active)

Removed

Level 7

New Talent: Heavenly Zeal (W)

Increases the Movement Speed bonus of Breath of Heaven on other allies from 10 to 25%

Blinding Speed (Q)

Moved from level 16

Blazing Fists (E)

Moved from level 16

Cooldown reduction per Basic Attack reduced from 1 to .75 seconds.

Clairvoyance (Active)

Removed

Cleanse (Active)

Removed

Level 13

Fists of Fury

Deadly Reach duration bonus increased from 50 to 100%

Level 16

New Talent: Cleansing Touch (Q)

Radiant Dashing to an allied Hero grants them Unstoppable for 1 second

New Talent: Dash of Light (W)

Radiant Dashing to an ally increases the healing they received from Breath of Heaven by 50% for 3 seconds

Echo of Heaven (W)

Moved from level 7

Delay between heals increased from 2 to 3 seconds

Second heal amount increased from 35 to 75%

Now also reduces the initial heal amount of Breath of Heaven to 75%

Way of the Hundred Fists (Q)

Moved from level 7

Now deals a volley of 6 Basic Attacks that each deal 50% of your Basic Attack damage.

Circle of Life (W)

Removed

Soothing Breeze (W)

Removed

Developer Comments: Kharazim’s Talents have been updated to create more compelling choices at every tier. To do this, we’ve made sure that Iron Fists / Bruiser style Kharazim is viable by increasing its damage uptime, removed a lot of the generic Talents and replaced them with Kharazim specific options like Mystic Allies, and re-arranged a lot of the tree so that you don’t have to sacrifice as much healing to pick mobility, utility or damage.

Warrior

Leoric

Abilities

March of the Black King (R)

Will no longer deal damage in a 90 degree arc behind Leoric

Developer Comments: We realize that we have a lot of Leoric players that are looking for talent changes and calling for buffs (especially to Skeletal Swing). We want you to know that we actively hear you and although this art-driven change came a bit earlier than our other changes, you spooky skeleton players should be able to rejoice in a future patch.

Samuro: Mirror Image Health bars will now reflect the number of Doubloons that Samuro is carrying on Blackheart’s Bay.

Tracer: Visual and Sound effects will now properly play upon completing the Untouchable Talent quest.

Uther: Uther’s Health bar will no longer disappear if he is revived via the Redemption Talent after being killed by Devouring Maw.

Varian: Fixed an issue which prevented the Basic Attack damage bonus offered by the High King's Quest talent from being properly modified after learning the Colossus Smash or Twin Blades of Fury talents.

Zarya: Fixed an issue that could cause Graviton Surge’s effect to persist indefinitely under certain circumstances.

Zarya: The Gain Train Talent can no longer apply a Shield to an ally-controlled Dragon Knight or Garden Terror.

Sound

Voiceover: Fixed an issue that could prevent Heroes’ voiceover lines from playing properly after being clicked on.

User Interface

In-Game: The Talents tab on the in-game Score Screen will now properly indicate when Valla’s Puncturing Arrow Talent quest is complete.

Quick Cast: Abilities with global range can now be properly cast using the minimap with Quick Cast set to “On Release”.